


Trees in Winter

by Bythoseburningembers



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Brotherly Love, Dean Winchester is Sam Winchester's Parent, Family Fluff, Flashbacks to The Cage, Fluff and Humor, Gen, Hurt Dean Winchester, Hurt/Comfort, Mary doesn't know how to be a mom, Mommy Issues, Post Episode: s12xe13, Protective Dean Winchester, Resurrected Mary Winchester, Sam Winchester Needs a Hug, Sort Of, They Actually Act Mature About This
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-09
Updated: 2021-02-09
Packaged: 2021-03-14 17:08:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,008
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29299401
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bythoseburningembers/pseuds/Bythoseburningembers
Summary: Set after 12x13,  Sam is rocked by Mary's departure. Dean takes the night into his own hands. Somehow, they end up at an ice-skating rink.Somehow, they're actually ok.
Relationships: Dean Winchester & Mary Winchester & Sam Winchester, Dean Winchester & Sam Winchester
Comments: 1
Kudos: 44





	Trees in Winter

Sam stood there for a long time after their mom left.

His heart like a fist in his throat. His stomach clenching itself into knots as if he had been punched in the kidneys.

He studied a nick in the wood of the table idly, remembering the cracks in the basement walls where Lady Bevell had imprisoned him.

She wasn’t his first torturer. She had been creative and sadistic, that was for sure, but being at her mercy was hardly his first time being tortured. Sam sorta doubted it would be the last, though hope sprung eternal. He was no stranger to degradation and torment.

But... Bevell had been in his head. She’d seen their secrets.

She’d threatened _Dean._

How could their own mother forget that? How could she forgive?

Sam had spent most of his time in his bed the week after being tortured. The only times he came out was to eat and talk with mom. Even years after being freed from the cage, Bevell’s calm questioning struck too close to Lucifer’s easy drawl. 

Add to that Dean’s near death... Sam had nearly lost the battle with insanity and anxiety and depression _again,_ kept alive only by Dean’s experienced care and his own determination not to give up.

Not because of some blonde chick with a stupid accent.

 _Mom doesn’t know that,_ he thought. _Maybe that’s the problem._

He hadn’t told her about Lucifer and the Cage. Hell, he’d barely managed a general summary of Jess and his college days, a few good stories from his childhood and some funny tales about their first few weeks in the bunker. 

But she’d left before... Before he felt comfortable sharing the gritty bits.

So she didn’t know, which was fair. Not her fault. Besides, maybe Sam was a little spoiled.

He was surrounded by protectors and warriors. Cas, despite his angelic presence, was scarily adept at holding a grudge when it came to the people he cared about. Sam was pretty sure he was still angry at that rando bar dude for hitting on Claire that _one time_.

Dean would and had killed a cat that scratched him. And Sam had been thirty at the time.

In their small, messed-up, tight-nit, found family, Sam’s enemies were his brother’s enemies. No questions asked, no fucks given. Because they had stood by him through it all, against everything from demons, to the devil to the Darkness. He was accustomed to that. He expected the same treatment from other people he considered family.

Evidently, their mom didn’t see family the same way.

What the _Hell?_ Where did Dean and he get it from then?

Sam ran a hand over his face. At least no one had broken anything. Honestly, that was a surprising show of maturity, especially on Dean’s part. He hadn’t even _shouted._

Though Sam almost wished he would have.

The greasy food their mom had brought now made him nauseous. He snatched the bag and walked into the kitchen to hurl it into the trash can with a bitterness that surprised even him.

_“I am your mother, but I am **not** just a mom. And **you** are not a child.”_

_“I never was.”_

He had to find Dean. If Sam was angry, Dean was bound to be apocalyptic, and at his angriest, Dean tended to revert to old, self-destructive habits like alcoholism, breaking chairs and speed racing down wet highways.

“Sam,” later, he would strenuously deny having ever jumped or made any noise of fright. He was a Hunter. He didn’t get startled by a stupid brother who could walk on his toes when he wanted like a friggin ghost. Jerk.

However, when he turned and saw Dean standing in the doorway with a small smirk, he knew his brother wouldn’t forget about it for at least two more weeks. “She gone?” Dean continued, instead of the expected teasing. It would come.

Sam stuffed his hands in his pockets. “Yeah.”

He expected some biting retort. A _good riddance_ or _can you believe her?_ Instead, Dean tapped his fingers against the doorway. “C’mon then. We’re going out for dinner. My treat.”

Sam was pretty sure his brows shot up so far that they vanished beneath his bangs. Dean narrowed his eyes at him. “What?” He demanded, and there it was, that harsh defensiveness. Sam nearly breathed a sigh of relief.

“Um... You don’t want to talk about mom?” He asked.

Dean shrugged, a bit self-consciously. “What’s there to say, man? She...” He closed his eyes and heaved a long, burdened sigh. When his eyes fluttered open again, Sam’s heart panged at the despair there.

“I can’t think about her right now. Now, I gotta do what I do best. My job,” and his job, as it had been since he was four years old, was to look out for Sam.

Of course.

It was like he’d thought. When angered or hurt, Dean fell back on old habits. Sam just hadn’t thought that this time he would take the safer route of falling back on an _ingrained_ habit. A few years ago, this would have infuriated him. He wasn’t some kid to be coddled whenever Dean got into a rut.

He was a little wiser now, though.

Sam nodded. If anyone could assuage their weary souls, Baby could. Some good food wouldn’t hurt either. They so rarely ate at an actual restaurant. Most times it was fast food or home cooked experiments.

“Ok. Sure. Where we goin?”

Dean surprised him once again. “Your choice, little brother, but you pick one of those hippy places without meat, then you’re walking home.”

Sam choked on a laugh, and had to cover his mouth so Dean didn’t catch his amusement. Sam would never hear the end of it if Dean started thinking he was funny.

If his brother’s sparkling eyes were any indication, he hadn’t succeeded. Sam grabbed the car keys from the table and tossed them to Dean, who caught them with one hand without looking.

“Chinese?” Sam suggested. It was an easy compromise, and the Chinese Restuarant in downtown Lawrence was a familiar, quiet spot where they could gorge themselves in relative peace.

And if Sam didn’t see another _burger and beer combo_ for a while, he wouldn’t complain.

“Why not?” Dean called over one shoulder. “But I’m stealing your fortune cookie.”

“Don’t you always?”

“Thought I’d give you the heads up this time.”

Sam slapped the back of Dean’s head, lightly. “Jerk,” he replied, with utmost affection. Dean didn’t even grunt. But he did reach out to pat Sam’s cheek, smiling, and if he held on a second more than usual, neither of them commented on it.

“Bitch.”

* * *

Later, bellies full and a little drunk, they stumbled back into the bunker, tears streaming down their faces.

“No, no, no, it was you!” Sam choked out between sniggers. He shoved Dean’s shoulder from behind, and his big brother flailed forward to lean against the staircase railings. His shoulders shook with near silent laughter. “I can’t _believe_ you talked me into that!”

“ _Me?_ ” Dean gasped. “It was your idea!” His voice was hoarse from the tipsy hilarity that had engulfed them since they’d stepped foot on a frozen floor.

“I said I tried it _once!_ ”

“Which usually means you’d like to try _twice!”_

Sam sank against the top step of their home and leaned against the hard metal. It dug into his shoulders and back but the pain was grounding. It was real. It was here. “That doesn’t even make any sense!”

Dean just shook his head and pounded a fist against his chest. His laughter had probably dislodged a lung or some shit. Chuck knew they didn’t do it too often. “Ah... Ah, Sam, her face...”

Sam covered _his_ face with both hands. His cheeks burned with mortification. “Shut up.”

Dean straightened up and swiped at the wetness dribbling from his stretched cheeks. “Shoulda known your squid limbs and unnatural height would make you bad at ice skating,” he teased. Sam lolled his head around to arch a brow at his older sibling.

“I’m trying to figure out why _you_ were so good at it.”

Dean waltzed past him down the rest of the stairs, head held high. It was a testament to his long experience with drunkenness that he only lost his footing twice and didn’t fall down the stairs once. “You don’t know my life,” he sniffed.

Sam snorted another laugh. A large part of him considered just remaining at the top of the stairs for the rest of... his life, actually. It wasn’t _that_ uncomfortable. Besides, he was warm and full and just buzzed enough that he felt giggly and light.

But Dean was down _there,_ and Sam had to hear this story.

Sam got to his feet with a labored inhale. “I’m not telling you stories anymore,” he accused as he finally made it to the bottom of the steps.

He could never have imagined that reminiscing with Dean over dinner would end up with them spending the next hour and a half at a midnight ice skating rink making complete fools of themselves.

Dean just laughed and lifted his feet onto the table. Sometime in the past few minutes while Sam had been struggling downstairs, he’d somehow fished out a soda from the fridge and taken a seat in the main room. He slid one over to Sam as he collapsed in the seat across.

“Dude, seriously, _how_?”

“What, you didn’t know I had the grace to be a dancer on ice?” Dean asked with twinkling eyes.

“I didn’t know you had the anything to be a dancer of anything.”

Dean took a swig of his soda. “Did it when I was a kid.”

“Ice skate?”

“It was for a date with this one girl,” Dean declared, as if it had been entire lifetimes ago. Which, fair. “Her name was... Isabelle? Ingrid? Inez? I don’t remember, exactly,” he waved a dismissive hand.

“Let’s say it was Irene. I was, like thirteen or fourteen and we were in Minnesota. Lakes froze over, obviously, and when I asked Irene what she wanted to do on our date, I thought she’d say smoochie time, but _no_. She wanted to go _ice skating._ ” He rolled his eyes, telling Sam what he’d thought of this plan as opposed to his own ideas.

“Where was I?” Sam asked. He didn’t recall ever being in Minnesota when it was cold enough for the lakes to freeze over. Their dad had had a strict rule about hunting in ice and snow. It was entirely too dangerous, even for their professional hunter family.

“You were with Bobby,” Dean said with a wave of his hand. “Dad wanted you to practice with a double barrel. Meanwhile, he took me to Minnesota and we got snowed in for a few weeks.”

Ah. Sam did remember that. He’d been pissed at his dad for leaving him behind while he and Dean went off on a hunt. He hadn’t even practiced with a double barrel. After two days of shooting with Bobby, the older man announced that Sam was good enough and forced him to help in the truckyard.

Sam had been even angrier upon learning that Dean and his dad were stranded halfway across the country.

If he were younger and sober, that old loneliness and betrayal would eat at him again. He would remember that _Dean_ was the one their dad trusted and relied on, while Sam was treated like a hindrance on his best days and a downright curse on the worst. He used to be jealous. He used to hate Dean for his blind obedience and trust.

Now, Sam was older and wiser and in order to live, he’d had to release those old insecurities. They had such larger problems than who their obsessive father had liked to boss around more.

“So, you and this Irene chick went ice skating? Where’d you even get the right shoes?”

“Irene stole them from her step-brother,” Dean drew lines in the table with a finger, smiling. “They were too big for me, I remember that. Gave me blisters. Anyway, so she took me out to this lake and Sammy, when I tell you I thought this girl was trying to _murder_ me. It was, like, eleven o clock at night and we were in the woods. It was pitch black out, and cold as Hell. Dad had no idea of course.”

He took a sip of his own drink. The carbonation tickled his tonsils. He coughed. “Drunk and passed out, huh?”

“Like a baby,” Dean agreed cheerily. “Don’t get me wrong, it was... Incredible. You could see the stars on the lake, and it was so smooth... Looked like glass. The air,” he leaned back in his seat, as if sniffing it again, and let out a long sigh of contentment.

“Was so _clean._ Still, I had my suspicions. The lake didn’t look like it could hold our weight, but I couldn’t back down in front of this pretty girl. She was ready and rearin’ to go.”

Sam rolled his eyes. “Yeah, the world would have _ended_ if she’d discovered you were afraid of hypothermia,” he quipped sarcastically. Dean glared at him, but there was no heat in it.

“Look Einstein, not all of us can be so _prudent.._.”

Sam pretended to gasp. “Ooh, big words...”

“Irene grabs my hand, right? Drags me out onto the ice. I must have fallen on my ass _at least_ fifteen times, but once I stopped worrying that she was a demon who was trying to drown me in freezing water, it was easy. Like riding a scooter.”

“And you remembered it, all these years later?” He asked, with some admiration and more envy. In college, he had allowed Jessica to take him ice skating once, and he’d lasted even less time than he had with Dean. His tailbone had ached for weeks afterward, he’d collapsed so many times.

Jessica, notably, had also believed it hilarious.

Dean shrugged. “Guess I got what it takes. You, on the other hand...”

Sam held up a finger. “Don’t say it.”

Dean’s mouth twitched. He tried to disguise it by running a hand along his cheeks, but Sam could _hear_ him laughing “I’ve seen you scare people before, Sam, but I gotta say, you terrified the _pants_ off that six-year-old,” Sam’s mouth perked at the edges but he buried his face in his arms to avoid laughing. He was terrible.

“I didn’t mean to fall on her!”

“I’m sure she’ll remember that in therapy.”

“Damn it,” he grumbled into his arms as Dean snickered. “I hate you,” he said, just as he outstretched one leg and swiped the chairs legs out from underneath Dean.

His brother collapsed to the floor with a short yelp. Sam didn’t hear the hard thud as he landed, probably on his tailbone, over his own hysterical laughter. Dean popped up a second later, rubbing the back of his head.

“What, you couldn’t finish off the third grader so now you go for your own brother?” He growled.

Sam clutched his sides as the vision of that poor girl’s horrified face flashed before his eyes, eyes wide and mouth open in a silent scream. She’d tried to scramble away from his towering bulk, but because of the ice she had remained in place, legs pumping but never moving.

He was terrible.

“What, you think you’re funny, Sasquatch?” Dean demanded while Sam relived the night. For some reason, he sounded closer than he had a minute ago... Sam gasped as nimble fingers poked at his neck and sides.

“De!” He shrieked, lurching forward to escape the tickling. “Stop it, Jerk-face!”

“Works every time,” Dean chuckled, aborting his mission. He gave Sam a last smack upside the head and returned to his own side of the table.

Sam was laughing too hard to be angry.

“Ah, ah man...” he gasped at last, trying to massage the burning muscles of his sides. “I don’t think we’ve had this much fun since we were kids and Bobby got us into the Candyland park, you ‘member?”

“Oh please,” Dean snorted. “That place was lame.”

“You’re only saying that because you ate too many chili hot dogs and puked on the first coaster. All over that old dude in the back!” Sam bit his bottom lip to hold back the burbling giggles. “Bobby had to take you home early and I got to stay and have fun.”

“I should have aimed the puke for _your face,”_ Dean informed him, as he righted his chair and plopped back into it. He kicked at Sam’s legs until they retreated back to his side of the table.

They lapsed into a comfortable silence then. Sam let the alcohol burble in his stomach and fuzz over his mind. Dean sipped his soda and flipped out his phone as it vibrated. “Who’s that?”

Dean leaned over the phone, fingers flying as he returned the text message. “The girls’ mom.”

“The girl that I smashed?”

“Hey,” Dean said, without looking up. The blue light of his phone illuminated his impish grin. _“I_ didn’t smash her. Dude, can you imagine if _Cas_ had been there tonight?”

“He’d either be an incredible ice skater or even worse than me,” Sam predicted. “We’ve gotta take him one of these days. Then he can heal anyone we accidentally injure.”

“Ah,” Dean rolled his head around to give him a casual, fond smile. No doubt he heard the thread of concern in Sam’s voice. “It wasn’t anything more than a bump and some trauma, she’ll be fine. Mom wouldn’t have given up her number otherwise.”

If anyone knew how over-protective parents functioned, it was Dean Winchester. Sam raised his soda can in gratitude. “Thanks bro.”

“Got your back, Sammy,” Dean replied, flippantly. As if he hadn’t proved it, time and again. As if they were regular brothers who hadn’t _literally_ been to hell and back beside each other and for each other.

Sometimes Sam marveled at that. Marveled at the fact that there were other brothers out there who wouldn’t share a cookie with their siblings, much less give their lives. He marveled at the idea that he and Dean had once been normal brothers with standard lives, _ever._

Granted, it had gone on for, like, six months, but damn.

In another life, another world, Sam was content to let the night remain like this. Another anecdote in the lives of two crusty old hunters. A rare spot of joy in their otherwise joyless lives. But that Sam, in that world, would eventually murder his brother.

Sam, as it was, couldn’t help but poke the nest of bees they’d been ignoring all night. “Hey De, do you think mom is disappointed in us?”

Dean stiffened immediately. “What?”

Sam didn’t meet his eyes. He instead focused on the unblemished smoothness of their ceiling. “I mean... Put yourself in her shoes. You come back after thirty years to your sons. They live together in an underground bunker with weapons that are thousands of years old, and hunt monsters together with their best friend, whos’ a disgraced Angel. Their history is... Complicated and kinda sad. The parts you know anyway. It had to be a shock.”

“Oh, yeah, she was more shocked than we were to have a cosmic being snap a complete stranger into our lives. Oh, but get this, the stranger also happens to be the mother we spent our entire lives trying to avenge, but when she’s back, she decides to pick sides with the asshats who tortured one of her children,” Dean downed the rest of his soda and belched angrily.

“But, sure, yeah, she has a right to be disappointed in _us,_ ” Dean snorted and when he phrased it like that, Mary’s actions did sound irreprehensible. Callous, even.

But Sam, of all people, knew that irreprehensible actions still had a _reason._

“Maybe she wasn’t picking sides. Maybe she was... Trying to fix things, the only way she knows how. By hunting,” he contemplated aloud.

“I’d be fine with that, if she hunted _with_ us.”

Sam ignored the growing ball of anger across from him. Maybe it was the alcohol or his own experience with an infuriated Dean, but his brother’s own reserves of rage no longer frightened him.

“Well, you know Dean. We are kind of...” Sam searched for the right word. “Attached at the hip,” he settled on.

“So?” Dean demanded.

Sam finally let his head swivel around so he could face Dean.

His brother was the perfect imitation of a slighted four-year-old. With his arms crossed and lips set into a firm line. His eyes hard and steely, a dam holding back volcanic ash.

_Don’t give me the face._

_What face?_

_You know the face_

_There is no face._

**_That’s_ ** _the face._

“So _you_ try wedging yourself into the hunting style of two people who’ve done it together for decades.”

“Other people hunt with us all the time!” Dean cried. He started ticking them off on his fingers. “Jody, Jo, Ellen, Rufus, Garth...”

“Yeah, for, like, two or three hunts! We work alone. We always have,” Sam picked at the seams of his shirt and sighed. He suddenly felt very small, and very young. Floundering at trying to reason out a very confusing world. “I’m not saying it’s a bad thing. I’m just saying that we aren’t exactly... Easy to get into a rhythm with, you know?”

Dean surged upright in his seat, his easy stance transmuted into something dangerous and serious. To a demon, it would signal immediate death or torture. To him, it was the stance Dean took when Sam was either in big trouble or about to get a serious scolding.

“Please tell me you’re not blaming yourself for this,” Dean said, with deadly calm.

Sam cringed. “Maybe I should have been more honest with her about why what the Brits did hurt so bad...” Even though the idea of explaining his time in the cage to their mom made him feel physically ill.

“Because _torture_ isn’t a good enough reason!? Sam, this would be a betrayal even to _normal_ people!”

“Yeah, but we work with torturers all the time!” He pointed out, past the lump in his throat. “We worked with Lucifer to put Amara down. We worked with Metatron to get the mark off and Gadreel to fight Metatron! We work with _Rowena_ and _Crowley_ on a daily basis!”

“Yeah, but that was _your_ call, Sam! If you’d told me you weren’t good, if you’d said _no,_ then I’d have let Amara burn down the world before I let Lucifer in here! I don’t care if he was in Cas’s body! I tried to skin Metatron and Gadreel multiple times! Same goes for all of the damn sadists we work with!” Dean’s fists trembled on the table. He looked unsure now, as if he wasn’t sure if Sam was angry at him.

It was such a Dean move. Sam assuaged him with a small smile. “I know,” he breathed. “I know that. But maybe.... We do that because that's how _our_ relationship works. Mom doesn’t have that yet...”

“Whose fault is that, huh?” Dean interrupted. “Not mine. Not yours. It’s on her. _She’s_ the one who pushed us away, Sam,” his voice wavered. Just enough that Sam heard the hitch, and it made his own soul ache in response. “She didn’t _want_ to get to know us.”

There was the crux of the problem, wasn’t it?

“Maybe that’s where I get it from,” he whispered forlornly. Dean glared a hole in his forehead.

“What?”

“Running away,” Sam let a small, sad smile cross his face as he looked up. Dean was still defiant in the face of his arguments, ever stubborn in his pursuit of rightness. “I’ve done it, Dean. A million times. I ran to college. I ran to Ruby. I ran to Amanda. You forgave _me_.”

“Of course I did,” Dean scoffed, and though Sam knew, in his bones, that he had been forgiven a long time ago, it still sent shards of relief and gratitude through him to hear it from Dean’s own mouth.

“So why not mom?” He pressed.

Dean opened his mouth, once, twice, as if gasping for breath. Sam knew he was just grasping at words. He waited, patiently, for an explanation. 

After a few minutes, Dean leaned back in his chair. Clenched and unclenched his fingers over the armrest. Stared at Sam as if searching for answers in his face.

When the answer came, it was with a soft but genuine intuition. “Because when you were four years old, I ate the last gummy bear, and you looked up at me and said _‘you’re the worst mom eber De.’_ When you were seven and I got sick, you threw the _mother_ of all hissy fits until dad went to the store and got me some damn orange juice.”

Sam blinked, taken aback.

Dean continued. “When you were eleven, and I got stuck under that fallen tree on a hunt, you fought off a Wendigo when you could have left me. When I was seventeen and came back from a fight all bloody and stupid, you stalled with dad _and_ got me to a hospital by yourself.”

“You did the same for me. A thousand times,” Sam pointed out, confusedly.

“That’s what I’m _saying_ ,” Dean leaned forward, eyes intense. “We are _blood_ Sam, but that’s just a damn coincidence. We are _family_ because we earned it and worked at it. Because we chose it. _That’s_ why I forgive you and you forgive me. But mom... She just expects us to give her a free pass because she’s our blood? Nope. Not happening,” Dean tipped his chin defiantly. “I _have_ people who care about me. I don’t have to settle for less because of some genes, ok? And neither do you!”

Sam floundered for a response. Pride and wariness warred for dominance in him. It had taken him years – _decades,_ damn it – to convince Dean of his own self-worth. That he didn’t deserve to be treated like crap by the people he loved because of some inherent failure. He just hadn’t known that the message stuck, and stuck so firmly that Dean would take a stand against Mary, their own _mother._

Hell, who was Sam to undo all that work by arguing?

“Yeah,” he gulped.

Dean must have seen something in his face because his shoulders relaxed, a trifle. “You know Sam, if you forgive mom... That’s your call. You feel how you want about it. I don’t trust the Brits and I don’t like what mom did... But I don’t want that to stop you from having your own relationship with her.”

Fuck. Sometimes he really loved his brother.

“I know, Dean,” he said warmly. “I don’t like it either. I just... Wanted to understand her point of view, I guess.”

“You could have gone after her earlier, and found out,” Dean pointed out.

Sam shrugged. “No. We’re a team and she hurt you too. I wasn’t going anywhere until I knew you were ok.”

Dean made a growling, scoff noise in the back of his throat. But he was looking at Sam with that look again, the one of mingled pride and respect that Sam was getting more often these days.

“It’s my job to look after _you_ , remember?”

True. But they were older and wiser now. Sam knew his own purpose in life had, eventually, come to mirror Dean’s. He was fine with that. “Uh huh. What do you think my job is?”

Dean smirked. But it slowly faded into a concerned, half-guilty scowl. “You deserve a good mom, Sam. Someone who’s _there_ for you.”

He shrugged. “Sure, I guess, but honestly Dean, I’m fine with just having you and Cas. You basically raised me anyway, and Cas isn’t doing too bad as another brother.”

“Took him awhile to get it,” Dean hummed, thoughtfully. “Now, he’s practically a Winchester. I just need to work harder on talking him into using a gun instead of that stupid blade all the time.”

“Good luck,” Sam snorted. He, also, had tried multiple times to convince Cas that a gun might be more efficient than the blade, but Cas was old-fashioned that way. “He needs flannel,” he added.

Dean groaned and thumped his forehead against the table. “Sam, stop. It’s _not_ gonna happen. He’s spiritually attached to that trench coat. We need, like, an angelic and demonic intervention to get him into normal clothes.”

“I’ll call Rowena if you call Crowley.”

Dean nodded seriously, lips quirking at the edges. “I mean, if we think about it, its sorta an emergency.”

“The universe itself would be transformed,” he agreed readily.

“Let’s start on it first thing tomorrow.”

“Deal,” they shared an identical grin at Cas’s expense, and though Sam was no closer to understanding his mother, he didn’t mind as much anymore. He had his family. He had a life that was worthy and exciting and changing the world, the way he’d always wanted.

“C’mon,” Dean jerked his head to the side. He pulled himself from his chair and stretched his arms above his head. “The night is still young. Wanna watch _Indiana Jones?_ ”

Damn it all, maybe he wasn’t normal or safe, but Sam wouldn’t change a thing.

He pushed himself up. “I’ll get popcorn.”

Dean smiled excitedly. He was like a puppy sometimes, made happy by the tiniest of things. “Nice! I’ll get it set up,” he started towards his own room, which held most of their movie collection. As he passed, however, he paused. Reached up to squeeze Sam’s shoulder. “We’re gonna be just fine lil brother.”

Sam’s eyes stung. He reached up to squeeze the hand on his shoulder. “There ain't no me," he promised, declared, lived. "If there ain't no you."

And that was the only truth by which they had been raised. 


End file.
